Content and Control
Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Web Design Day 2013 - Pittsburgh, PA
Content and Control
Content problems. We all have them: Your clients can't get you copy on time. Marketing's massive paragraphs break your tidy designs. Or maybe your site's overflowing with stuff, and no one's responsible for keeping track of where things are and why they're there.
Content strategy to the rescue, right? Well, sorta.
It'd be nice if a few well-placed deliverables could solve the problem. But editorial plans and style guides won't change things. Neither will structured content and a custom CMS. We can't mastermind solutions and expect them to stick in organizations full of complex people, histories, and challenges.
When it comes to improving content, it's not about fixing. It's about facilitating—helping organizations adapt, so their content can adapt with them.
If you're used to designing and building, this is a big shift. This talk will help you get started by showing you:
- Where you can fit into the content strategy process
- How to facilitate tough conversations and get people talking about content early and often
- How to empower people to work together across departments, disciplines, and teams
Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Sara Wachter-Boettcher is an independent content strategist, writer, and editor. She’s lived in both the Arizona desert and Pennsylvania Dutch country, but she’s still an Oregonian at heart. When she's not fretting over where her husband's academic career will make her move next, she’s helping clients design systems for flexible, adaptable, mobile-ready content.
She’s the author of Content Everywhere, out now from Rosenfeld Media; the editor in chief of A List Apart, a magazine about web content, culture, and code; a contributor to publications like Contents and the Pastry Box Project; and a speaker at web conferences worldwide.